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Orphan Black Season 4, Episode 9 Recap: A Game of Clones

Oh, Evil Cho. Sigh. You really thought you were going to come out ahead of Clone Club that easily? One episode of triumphant glory, and … pfffftttt. Already kicked to the curb. Then again, it could be worse – at least it wasn’t Helena doing the kicking.

Anyway … onto the recap!

We begin with more weird visions. Rachel’s bionic eye is still glitching – not only is she still seeing digital visions of a swan, she’s now apparently tapped into a video feed of The Others’ winter resort on Lost. Seriously, if Hurley was sitting by a fire, it wouldn’t be all that surprising. Rachel’s visions get interrupted by Ira, who lets her know that they have visitors – Sarah and Felix, who want to talk about getting rid of Evil Cho. The meeting’s not exactly cordial. “Scarcely believed it, a Castor who favors slacks,” snarks Felix as they all gather, which pretty much sets the tone of the meeting.

Turns out that while BrightBorn (and Evil Cho) have Big Plans for going global, there’s a couple of inconvenient hiccups happening there. Two of the surrogate mothers there, rightly creeped out by what’s happening, decided to split and have gone rogue. One of them also took a video of doctors at BrightBorn euthanizing one of the Eraserhead babies and is threating to go public with it. Rachel wants to find the rogue mothers and have them spill their story to the press, along with the video. And they need to do so before Evil Cho and her minions find them first. Sarah and Felix are down with the plan, but they don’t want any further assistance from Rachel and Ira. Rachel agrees. Rachel’s also a liar.

Meanwhile, Donnie’s out on bail, and apparently all he can think about now that he’s a free man is getting laid. “I’ll make you see God,” Donnie so tastefully says to Alison. Ewwwwwwww. Donnie, we love you, but it’s not like you were doing solitary in Attica for the last twenty years. It was a weekend. Settle down. Mercifully, they meet with their attorney – Felix’s bio-sister Adele – before getting it on, and Adele’s already figured out that there’s plenty they aren’t telling her. Felix shows up to do some damage control, but by the time they’re confidently proclaiming that Dead Darkwing Duko is “on leave” and nothing to worry about, Adele’s had enough.

With Felix at the Hendrixes, Sarah enlists Art’s help in tracking down the BrightBorn mothers. One’s easy to find – she “committed suicide” at a halfway house. Art looks into it, and can tell pretty fast that it was a “forcibly assisted by Neolution goons” suicide. While he’s doing that, Sarah gets a call from Helena. Yay! Helena’s been slaughtering deer and roughing it in the wild, but she’s okay. Helena wants to know if her sestras are okay. Sarah says things are about the same as usual. Helena knows what that means.

Over at the Island of Misfit Clones, Cosima’s busy fertilizing Sarah’s eggs with Ira’s sperm with Susan Duncan’s help. Ewwwwwwwww, even if it’s scientifically necessary. While they wait for the tissue samples to reach zygote status, Susan gives Cosima the dusty Ye Olde Ancient History of Neolution to read. She does, with some interest. “It’s fascinating, for something written by a racist blowhard who thinks poverty is genetic,” Cosima says. Susan, surprisingly, takes this in stride. They discuss ethics some more, and it’s interesting to see that they’re able to see each other’s points of view. It’s also interesting to see Susan’s attitude towards Cosima – she gives Cosima a lot more respect than Rachel, even though Rachel’s ostensibly on the Neolution side.

Back to Sarah and Art. Doing some police posing as Beth, Sarah gets a lead on the remaining on-the-lam BrightBorn mother. They track her down to a ramshackle house in the little town of Tisdale – she’s given birth to her BrightBorn baby, who’s blind and would probably be on Evil Cho’s euthanization list if she hadn’t run. Art and Sarah tell her that she needs to come forward with her story. She doesn’t want to – she’s afraid of what might happen to her other child, a 10-year old boy. Sarah relays this to Rachel, who pretty much says blackmail her into doing what they want. Sarah refuses. Rachel’s not happy.

Not happy with Donnie and Alison’s lack of answers, Adele starts demanding them from Felix. He does a decent job of dancing around her questions, but when Helena suddenly shows up … awkward. “This is Sarah’s other twin?” Adele asks. “Who comes from a different country?” Hah! Her reason for being on the show might not make sense, but Adele’s still awesome. Helena and Adele get into it a little, and Felix needs to break things up before he admits the truth to Adele – or at least a small slice of it, anyway. “Adele, you are so beautifully unsullied by all this shit, and I’m not going to be the one who ruins that for you,” he says. Reluctantly, Adele realizes that it’s probably best if she extricates herself from the Clone Club drama, and she does. It’s a great scene.

Sarah and Art are still with BrightBorn Mom. She hasn’t changed her mind about going public. When Neolution goons show up with guns, though, that makes her a little more inclined to change her mind. Also encouraging her is a surreptitious phone call from Ira – surprise – who’s waiting outside in a car to rescue her and her baby. Oh, and by the way, if she doesn’t come along? Bad news for her 10-year old son. While Sarah and Art deal with the goons, she makes the prudent choice and escapes with Ira. To say Sarah’s pissed is an understatement.

Donnie and Alison – after some fairly unspectacular Donnie-coitus that probably didn’t leave poor Alison seeing God, as promised – decide that going on the lam for a while might be a good idea. (AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH. NOT A GOOD IDEA, DONNIE AND ALISON.) They start to pack. A Neolution goon shows up, and ties up Donnie. He tells Alison that he’ll stick a glitchy maggot-bot in her cheek unless she tells him where Sarah is, and what happened to Darkwing Duko. She refuses, and starts to pray. She’s a moment away from getting a cheek full of maggot-bot when Helena shows up and SHOOTS A FREAKING ARROW INTO NEOLUTION GOON’S NECK. Holy shit, that was awesome. “Where did you come from?” an astonished – and bloodspattered – Alison askes. “Beaver Falls National Park,” Helena replies. “Very peaceful.”

Evil Cho’s about to have her YUGE press conference announcing her Big Plans for BrightBorn. Rachel shows up. She tells Evil Cho that she still wants in with Neolution, and offers her the euthanization video and the remaining rogue mom. Evil Cho accepts. And then, in a moment that defies all logic, Rachel asks Evil Cho to reveal and admit to her evil plan … and she does it. No hesitation, she starts monologuing in all her glory. Of course, the pendant around Rachel’s neck is a video camera recording said monologuing … and the moment Evil Cho leaves to start the press conference, Rachel and Ira are busy sending the videoed confession – and the euthanization video – to every reporter at the press conference.

Bad move, Evil Cho. Bad move. Rachel played you. Like a fiddle. Which makes the moves she made earlier this season even more puzzling – why repeatedly threaten to eliminate Sarah, Cosima, and the rest of the ‘aware’ Leda Clones, but not actually do it? Why allow Rachel to hang around to cause damage, especially since it seemed it was obvious she was going to do so? If Evil Cho was a villain on “Game of Thrones”, characters like Littlefinger and Varys would’ve eaten her alive.

Or, in the words of another more brilliant villain …

Then again, Evil Cho’s still around as well. Guess we’ll see how she counters Rachel and the other clones in the season finale.

Speaking of which, next week: More Helena! More Krystal! And is Delphine back from the dead? It’s going to be a hell of a finale …

The Good:

“Donnie Hendrix. You look like roast pig.” Awwwww. We so missed you, Helena.

“You did just mix mood stabilizers with gin, darling.” “That’s brunch.” I still have no idea why Adele is actually on this show, but her scenes with Felix this week were fantastic. I just hope the show can come up with a vaguely plausible and legitimate reason for her to be on this show next season!

The Bad:

Donnie’s “I need to get laid right now” bullshit. It was … strange.

The WTF:

A lot. Again.

The euthanization video. Why the hell would you EVER send that to Evil Cho and Neolution while you’re on the run? Having that is a death sentence. It doesn’t make sense to send it unless 1) you’ve already got backing and protection from someone like Rachel or 2) Because Plot. Sigh. Option #2 got picked for the zillionth time this season.

Evil Cho’s admission to Rachel made ZERO sense. That went beyond dumb. “Can you admit that you murder babies?” “Sure!” Again, Because Plot. There were more clever ways to get Evil Cho to admit that, and instead, we got the lazy version. It’s been a recurring and frustrating theme of this season – characters doing incredibly bizarre and out-of-character things just to advance the storyline.